As the Hourglass Empties...

Hi five. We've got bholanath on Mridang , Su-Nami on Wind Chimes, Scappy on Mandolin, me on Thumb Piano and freeacre working up some organic munchies in the kitchen. Charles is on the roof adjusting lighting [watchit!], so slip on your darkers, striped sweaters and get out those cigarette holders, its Poetry Night:

THE LOON

On wooded height the slanting light
In glinting, gleaming radiance falls,
And softly sifts throught opening rifts
That cleave the fog-bank's hazy walls.
The splendor thrills from purple hills,
And lights the grassy circling swell;
But, hist! awake! From off the lake
The loon's wild cries, with sprite-like spell,
"Ke-woi-o! Ke-we-oi-o!"

In bluest sky the fleece clouds lie,
In floating fancies slow unfolding;
The village spire is tipped with fire
Reflections bright from golden moulding.
While close around, in slumber bound,
The roofs of modest mansions rise.
The silence breaks! From off the lake's
Unrippled reach, the loon's wild cries,
"Ke-woi-o! Ke-we-oi-o!"

"Oh, tell my why," I weary cry,
"A world so peaceful, fair, and pure,
Must still be rife with crime and strife
Why sin and sorrow must endure?
Why labor's slave, whose spirits crave
Such beauty, ne'er can steal a glance?"
My sole reply, the loon's wild cry,
Again returned in echo's chance,
"Ke-woi-o! Ke-we-oi-o!"

George Charles Selden 1893

INDIAN SUMMER

At last there came

The sudden fall of frost, when Time

Dreaming through russet September days

Suddenly awoke, and lifting his head, strode

Swiftly forward--made one vast desolating sweep

Of his scythe, then, rapt with the glory

That burned under his feet, fell dreaming again.

And the clouds soared and the crickets sang

In the brief heat of noon; the corn,

So green, grew sere and dry--

And in the mist the ploughman's team

Moved silently, as if in dream--

And it was Indian summer on the plain.

Hamlin Garland, (1860-1940) American Novelist, Short Story Writer, and Poet; active social reformer, especially concerned with Native American rights

Part XXII: Hiawatha's Departure

By the shore of Gitche Gumee,

By the shining Big-Sea-Water,

At the doorway of his wigwam,

In the pleasant Summer morning,

Hiawatha stood and waited.

All the air was full of freshness,

All the earth was bright and joyous,

And before him, through the sunshine,

Westward toward the neighboring forest

Passed in golden swarms the Ahmo,

Passed the bees, the honey-makers,

Burning, singing In the sunshine.

Bright above him shone the heavens,

Level spread the lake before him;

From its bosom leaped the sturgeon,

Sparkling, flashing in the sunshine;

On its margin the great forest

Stood reflected in the water,

Every tree-top had its shadow,

Motionless beneath the water.

From the brow of Hiawatha

Gone was every trace of sorrow,

As the fog from off the water,

As the mist from off the meadow.

With a smile of joy and triumph,

With a look of exultation,

As of one who in a vision

Sees what is to be, but is not,

Stood and waited Hiawatha.

Toward the sun his hands were lifted,

Both the palms spread out against it,

And between the parted fingers

Fell the sunshine on his features,

Flecked with light his naked shoulders,

As it falls and flecks an oak-tree

Through the rifted leaves and branches.

O'er the water floating, flying,

Something in the hazy distance,

Something in the mists of morning,

Loomed and lifted from the water,

Now seemed floating, now seemed flying,

Coming nearer, nearer, nearer.

Was it Shingebis the diver?

Or the pelican, the Shada?

Or the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah?

Or the white goose, Waw-be-wawa,

With the water dripping, flashing,

From its glossy neck and feathers?

It was neither goose nor diver,

Neither pelican nor heron,

O'er the water floating, flying,

Through the shining mist of morning,

But a birch canoe with paddles,

Rising, sinking on the water,

Dripping, flashing in the sunshine;

And within it came a people

From the distant land of Wabun,

From the farthest realms of morning

Came the Black-Robe chief, the Prophet,

He the Priest of Prayer, the Pale-face,

With his guides and his companions.

And the noble Hiawatha,

With his hands aloft extended,

Held aloft in sign of welcome,

Waited, full of exultation,

Till the birch canoe with paddles

Grated on the shining pebbles,

Stranded on the sandy margin,

Till the Black-Robe chief, the Pale-face,

With the cross upon his bosom,

Landed on the sandy margin.

Then the joyous Hiawatha

Cried aloud and spake in this wise:

"Beautiful is the sun, O strangers,

When you come so far to see us!

All our town in peace awaits you,

All our doors stand open for you;

You shall enter all our wigwams,

For the heart's right hand we give you.

"Never bloomed the earth so gayly,

Never shone the sun so brightly,

As to-day they shine and blossom

When you come so far to see us!

Never was our lake so tranquil,

Nor so free from rocks, and sand-bars;

For your birch canoe in passing

Has removed both rock and sand-bar.

"Never before had our tobacco

Such a sweet and pleasant flavor,

Never the broad leaves of our cornfields

Were so beautiful to look on,

As they seem to us this morning,

When you come so far to see us!'

And the Black-Robe chief made answer,

Stammered In his speech a little,

Speaking words yet unfamiliar:

"Peace be with you, Hiawatha,

Peace be with you and your people,

Peace of prayer, and peace of pardon,

Peace of Christ, and joy of Mary!"

Then the generous Hiawatha

Led the strangers to his wigwam,

Seated them on skins of bison,

Seated them on skins of ermine,

And the careful old Nokomis

Brought them food in bowls of basswood,

Water brought in birchen dippers,

And the calumet, the peace-pipe,

Filled and lighted for their smoking.

All the old men of the village,

All the warriors of the nation,

All the Jossakeeds, the Prophets,

The magicians, the Wabenos,

And the Medicine-men, the Medas,

Came to bid the strangers welcome;

"It is well", they said, "O brothers,

That you come so far to see us!"

In a circle round the doorway,

With their pipes they sat In silence,

Waiting to behold the strangers,

Waiting to receive their message;

Till the Black-Robe chief, the Pale-face,

From the wigwam came to greet them,

Stammering in his speech a little,

Speaking words yet unfamiliar;

"It Is well," they said, "O brother,

That you come so far to see us!"

Then the Black-Robe chief, the Prophet,

Told his message to the people,

Told the purport of his mission,

Told them of the Virgin Mary,

And her blessed Son, the Saviour,

How in distant lands and ages

He had lived on earth as we do;

How he fasted, prayed, and labored;

How the Jews, the tribe accursed,

Mocked him, scourged him, crucified him;

How he rose from where they laid him,

Walked again with his disciples,

And ascended into heaven.

And the chiefs made answer, saying:

"We have listened to your message,

We have heard your words of wisdom,

We will think on what you tell us.

It is well for us, O brothers,

That you come so far to see us!"

Then they rose up and departed

Each one homeward to his wigwam,

To the young men and the women

Told the story of the strangers

Whom the Master of Life had sent them

From the shining land of Wabun.

Heavy with the heat and silence

Grew the afternoon of Summer;

With a drowsy sound the forest

Whispered round the sultry wigwam,

With a sound of sleep the water

Rippled on the beach below it;

From the cornfields shrill and ceaseless

Sang the grasshopper, Pah-puk-keena;

And the guests of Hiawatha,

Weary with the heat of Summer,

Slumbered in the sultry wigwam.

Slowly o'er the simmering landscape

Fell the evening's dusk and coolness,

And the long and level sunbeams

Shot their spears into the forest,

Breaking through its shields of shadow,

Rushed into each secret ambush,

Searched each thicket, dingle, hollow;

Still the guests of Hiawatha

Slumbered In the silent wigwam.

From his place rose Hiawatha,

Bade farewell to old Nokomis,

Spake in whispers, spake in this wise,

Did not wake the guests, that slumbered.

"I am going, O Nokomis,

On a long and distant journey,

To the portals of the Sunset.

To the regions of the home-wind,

Of the Northwest-Wind, Keewaydin.

But these guests I leave behind me,

In your watch and ward I leave them;

See that never harm comes near them,

See that never fear molests them,

Never danger nor suspicion,

Never want of food or shelter,

In the lodge of Hiawatha!"

Forth into the village went he,

Bade farewell to all the warriors,

Bade farewell to all the young men,

Spake persuading, spake in this wise:

I am going, O my people,

On a long and distant journey;

Many moons and many winters

Will have come, and will have vanished,

Ere I come again to see you.

But my guests I leave behind me;

Listen to their words of wisdom,

Listen to the truth they tell you,

For the Master of Life has sent them

From the land of light and morning!"

On the shore stood Hiawatha,

Turned and waved his hand at parting;

On the clear and luminous water

Launched his birch canoe for sailing,

From the pebbles of the margin

Shoved it forth into the water;

Whispered to it, "Westward! westward!"

And with speed it darted forward.

And the evening sun descending

Set the clouds on fire with redness,

Burned the broad sky, like a prairie,

Left upon the level water

One long track and trail of splendor,

Down whose stream, as down a river,

Westward, westward Hiawatha

Sailed into the fiery sunset,

Sailed into the purple vapors,

Sailed into the dusk of evening:

And the people from the margin

Watched him floating, rising, sinking,

Till the birch canoe seemed lifted

High into that sea of splendor,

Till it sank into the vapors

Like the new moon slowly, slowly

Sinking in the purple distance.

And they said, "Farewell forever!"

Said, "Farewell, O Hiawatha!"

And the forests, dark and lonely,

Moved through all their depths of darkness,

Sighed, "Farewell, O Hiawatha!"

And the waves upon the margin

Rising, rippling on the pebbles,

Sobbed, "Farewell, O Hiawatha!"

And the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,

From her haunts among the fen-lands,

Screamed, "Farewell, O Hiawatha!"

Thus departed Hiawatha,

Hiawatha the Beloved,

In the glory of the sunset,.

In the purple mists of evening,

To the regions of the home-wind,

Of the Northwest-Wind, Keewaydin,

To the Islands of the Blessed,

To the Kingdom of Ponemah,

To the Land of the Hereafter!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow spent nearly a year and a half on Hiawatha, finishing in November of 1855.


THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost (1874–1963). Mountain Interval. 1920.

photos:
Beatniks c. google images
Loon: c. google images


[About that absurd while box below, heh, your guess is as good as mine. N]

Just a typical week in the Apocalypse

Its a snow day here after yesterday's 7.2 mag earthquake in Baja. Not being an Ologist of one or the other, I'm not sure if there is a relationship in what I just said or if there is a relationship to what the Fireteacher grumbled when he saw the quake graph on IRIS, which was " Hmmmm, gettin' closer to the San Andreas Fault ..." (I thought the same). Meanwhile, we ponder the relationship of the current external public nastiness with the shift in the Tectonic Plates, as if Mother has had quite enough and those priests should all be doing time, etc. The fact they are not in the clinker (still abusing) means Nature will do as Nature must, text Luca Brazzi aka Mister Karma to clean up the joint. There is enough happening on the ground to upset the balance, flying in the face of every human life, every innocent species just being alive, but in process of being extincted though our overpopulation-consumerism-corruption crisis. Such a crisis, no matter how you look at it, is unfolding as genocide planet wide benefiting no one, with the exception of Nature. As I said before, when its gone, there is nothing left for exploitation by corporations in their daily business of exploitation, war and addiction. Yesterday, they rubbed their hands together in glee, tomorrow those hands will be grasping the edge of the cliff. Warning, don't look down, you will find there is no soft landing or even any landing at all. Infinity is a long way down. In our slow collapse, it might just take as long to fall as it took to achieve superpower stardom if it were not for the arrival of Peak Everything like a smothering black veil creeping over the Earth. Every day it is darker out there.


Being a snow day (holiday), there won't be any painting, everyone is home, big dog indoors doing figure 8's around the sofa, Fireteacher posting on the blogs alternating with some fix-its and the light is weak. I came across a few sites I'd like you to see if you have not already. Begin with Charles's The U.S. Status Quo: Unsustainable, Doomed and Danced Out:

...it is certainly striking that the two products chosen more or less at random were both complete wastes of money and time.

Added together with millions of similarly defective/low-quality/useless goods, this is malinvestment on a vast scale.

Add in the granite countertops in millions of falling-apart McMansions, empty malls, vacant highrises, hundreds of needless "profit center" MRI machines, etc. and we have a nation which has misinvested trillions of dollars which are now lost to productive investment elsewhere.

No economy can recover from this scale of malinvestment ...

... I am reminded of the Beatles' song I, Me, Mine. Perhaps that will be the anthem of the next decade as everyone scrambles to protect their swag and perquisites at the expense of some other less politically adept group of citizens, until the entire system freezes up and the dancers suddenly notice the music stopped playing a long time ago.

From there, you'll be of a mind to check out Justin Raimondo's Rachel Maddow, McCarthyite, the FBI, the left and the war on "extremism:

...there is a sinister aspect to all this violence-baiting, as well as a comic one. For the central point of all the pro-FBI, pro-government, anti-"extremist" propaganda blaring from MSNBC and other news outlets is to convince us that speech leads to violence – and that, indeed, certain forms of political speech – "antigovernment" in nature – are inherently violent.

The irony of this is that these people are cheerleaders for the biggest most powerful purveyor of violence on earth, the US federal government. All states are founded on violence, of course, and maintained in power by the continual threat of it, and yet the US government enjoys a special status in this regard, with more firepower at its command – and the inclination to use it – than any previous empire in human history. We are talking about a government currently waging two open wars and one "secret" one, abroad – systematically murdering many thousands – and actively threatening yet another.

The tiny and powerless Hutaree "militia" has about as much chance of overthrowing this Leviathan as a flea. Yet they are charged with "sedition." This would be a joke if it weren’t such a danger to what’s left of our civil liberties. ...

Next, it seems to me that long essays on this blog are supreme time swallowers and am going to be testing out a less consuming approach of brief mentions, more frequently. This would be a mirror to Ran's style, but when there is a need, I claim the right to revert. Likely, we'll end up with both. Today is a good example of what to expect.

Next, but on topic: How will all those people who built homes since NAFTA went into effect in 1992 know where their drywall was created? The Feds say if you have a home with Chinese drywall, it has to be gutted. And who pays for that?

Lastly, in reflection on the Easter weekend busy news, let me close with a mention there really is such a person as a Papal Preacher. A Papal Preacher (loose cannon) that thinks the public response to the (pure evil) sexual molestation scandal is anti-semitism. The Pope's personal Papal Preacher was made to apologize after the outrage hit the airwaves, but who really knows what goes on deep inside someone's secret mind or inside the Holy See?

Since all of us are subjected to the passage of time in years designated A.D. and B.C., you'll begin to get an idea of how powerful is organized religion by thinking a bit on that. How different it would all be if that power never got its grip so long ago.

Awful layout problems persist for some unknown reason. Will continue to work on it.

when less is more

Agave

14" x 20"

watercolor on Arches


There have been problems posting vertical images on the header lately. I will continue to try to position it at the top in a larger size, but this may have to do for awhile.


UPDATE: 24.02.09 It is suiting that Susana's harmonious accompanyment be included in this entry on Agave. Thank you Su. You make it complete.

susana said...
I used to be shining and new
My presence could get some hearts
pumping through
some jealousy flowing around and about
but never heavy, just jibes from the crew.

Gliding along pretty country roads
to destinations of simple pleasures:
the harvest picnic
the easter service
the village dance
the drive on the days where there was nothing to do.

My rear filled with laughing people
delighted to feel the wind on their faces
Lovers loving up front.
The privacy of the cabin their aces.

Cool water washing me down
smooth polish would create a shine

Now -Well strangely I'm no less content
despite the rust and numerous dents
The sun and moon still do their thing
Still catch the breeze and her gentle me-anderings.
Life as a pick-up is different now
and some days to pass time I pretend I am a cow.

in the here and now

In attempting to keep up with THE BIG MESS have you remembered to check the market stats just to see how Wall Street is taking it? Week ending January 2nd, things are still bubbling along, no extremes: BigCharts

At least not the extremes we've so recently experienced. Why is this? Wouldn't you think as Day Eight of the "conflict" explodes into a 10,000 troop ground assault the market would have teetered by week's end? No, you wouldn't think that.

Not when weapons sales are so profitable. It is a most upside down backwards situation where delusion and terror reign supreme over the Earth. This isn't how its supposed to be, not what we thought life had in store for humans, but reviewing history, it IS what IS and always has been, only now technology is in place to speed it all up, like its on meth. Meth, another profitable weapon. How sane is that? And how sane, if true, is this? The Gaza Bombshell

I have come to hate the word "foment". Its never used in context with decency, is it.

Nothing prevents evil activity accompanied with blatant denial to run the whole show anywhere. Give it time. Its like you are walking down the street passing by a theater marquee that reads "Upcoming Features: Ethnic Cleansing, Genocide, Humanitarian Crisis".

Reminder: If you are not repairing the Dignity in dry dock, or sailing on your own, don't forget to continue to put into practice your personal survival strategies at this time. Doing nothing is not an option. In case you missed it last summer, I am reposting Charles's amazing piece Where Rubber Meets the Road for working solutions:

."..This isn't an exhaustive list but it's a start. Much of it will not be popular because it isn't a "high tech solution" and it all requires work, learning, responsibility and paying attention--all the traits which our "entertainment" obsession erodes, discounts and destroys."

I can tell by my spam and suspect email cache that the retailers are losing ground. Last fall it was free shipping, now items that were once $149.00 are going for $10.99. Many catalogues in the mailbox have stickers on the outside saying "You have not purchased anything yet!" Newsflash guys, we are not going to, either. If we are going down, who cares about doing it in a Leopardskin smoking jacket with matching open-toed mules?

Meanwhile, firewood gathering and stacking, burning, fireplace cleaning, ash disposal, adjustments to the fire itself for greatest warmth have all become a nonstop, never-ending routine around here. There has been much snow, hail, ice rain and now, today, drizzle and fog. Wood fuel foraging and storage will have to continue all year long, summer is no exception. Charles is RIGHT, it is work, hard and dirty work, it isn't entertaining, it is survival. Survival as you know, is freedom.

Sodabox at High Noon

for William Carlos Williams

14" x 20" watercolor on Arches

Summer 2007